This program is open to athletes who have qualified for the Eastern Championship Series (ECS) from the Freestyle Development Team (B-Team) and will travel regionally to ECS events in the USSA Eastern Division. This is a highly structured program with an elite level coaching staff. Each participating athlete is provided a personalized performance plan that includes extended on and off snow training opportunities, Friday through Sunday during the season, with additional and select training and competition days both early and late season. Additional training plan components will address nutrition and fitness while away from Stratton midweek and/or off season. Goal setting and performance assessment will be ongoing throughout the year, and athletes will be active and accountable in this process. USSA Competitor License is mandatory. Additional FIS License may apply. Event registration fees are not included. Additional travel fees may be required.

We always have an interesting and different experience at our Killington A Klassic event! I would like to congratulate Jamie L. for her awesome win at the duals on Sunday and for that matter the dual win at Bristol the week before👏🏻. These titles are huge and show Jamie’s incredible ability to charge and get it done in a super aggressive dual format!

That being said Killington is notoriously a super challenging course and with that comes the mental anguish/needs for regrouping and readjusting our technique for these courses. For any of you who are upset about their results/training we have to remember that being in the A program is much more than a title, it is truly an earned honor via a great amount of work! Meaning new A team athletes are learning to walk, not run at the events we compete at each week. With each event comes its own challenges. I would like to encourage everybody to realize these challenges and we as a team will work together with athletes and coaches to make the next week better and more productive. We learn from challenges, we learn from the sport and in the end it’s about strategizing, sometimes reassessing, moving ahead, having fun and taking something away from freestyle.

Pics from Hank Kosinski at Killington for personal use: https://hankkosinski.smugmug.com/Skiing/SKIING-2018-2019/SWSC-2018-2019-SEASON/SWSC-Killington/

This coming Sunday & Monday (training Saturday) we have the Lake Placid/Whiteface Bumps & Jumps event. This event will be directly following the World Cup competition they are hosting on Friday. So another challenging course- but always well designed and many of our skiers over the years have enjoyed it.

We will have a training day on Saturday. You can meet the coaches in the upstairs of the Whiteface base lodge at 10:30, training tickets are available at the comp center- just 100 feet from the base lodge for $50. On hill training will go from 11 to 2 Saturday afternoon.

Again you guys are doing awesome- I am super proud of our team and look forward to seeing everybody this weekend. Sorry I was unable to be there at Killington- I was sick and truly missed all the action and missed you guys! I’d like to thank Adam, Megan and Grace for coaching- you guys did a great job!

After a very long weekend at Bristol Mountain- I’d like to congratulate our A team on a fantastic weekend! Bristol was very fortunate to be able to put on such a great competition with absolutely no snow and we thank them for that.I loved our first competition results… But more importantly I loved our team energy and work ethic. We had a very small window of opportunity to train our new and old air maneuvers, work top to bottom hill skills and put competition run packages together that fit the Bristol course. Thank you to Hank Kosinski who took some excellent photos (pictured above) please click here to view: https://hankkosinski.smugmug.com/Skiing/SKIING-2018-2019/SWSC-2018-2019-SEASON/SWSC-Bristol/

With new and old members of our A team performing well each week I will applaud your great results and not always give names. With this in mind- results are not always about being in the top three or top five or top fifty placings...results are our ability to make one step higher with our skills or to just get from the top to the bottom of a super challenging run or to land your first 360s or backflips in competition. Yes- it’s about reaching goals. Sometimes these goals take time-sometimes more than a full season to complete-often we have to reset our goals. In the end I felt our team really came together this weekend and that our athletes, parents and coaches had fun and got it done! For the coming week and it’s on to Killington!

The Killington Klassic will be featuring it’s mogul event this week on Highline. An easy walk for spectators. Coaches will be meeting interested training athletes Friday morning on the second floor of the K1 base lodge at 10:30. Training will start at 11 o’clock with access provided to Highline via the Snowdon triple chair.

Course inspection on Saturday will be from 8:15- 8:30 then training until 9:30.

I will be placing all our Bristol training and competition video runs on the Sprongo website. It is vitally important that you sign up with your name and email address on the website if you would like to be getting copies of your runs sent your email address via Sprongo (or even be viewing them).The process is not very difficult. If you do not register for the Sprongo account it is very difficult for me to put your videos on it. Thank you for this.

Again, great job athletes… Thank you parents for your cooperation and help. Also a big shout out to my coaches

Hope everyone is catching up on sleep after a super busy and productive holiday week. It was a lot of fun to round off our Christmas week with the 21 jump salute!

Very proud of everyone’s hard work over the holidays trying to get their skill levels up for competition which will be starting this weekend at Bristol Mountain.

First off I will admit that the weather for our holiday camp was challenging! But as they say sometimes bad things bring out good results we made the best of the situation-we were able to get a lot of jumping in early and late in the week. Also did some pretty good training on the Beeline moguls and filled our remaining time with legitimate drill workouts. We were very fortunate to have the guest coaching skills of Mr. Mac Bohonnon and Troy Tully who were just great to have helping to give us information and up our skill levels on snow and off the jumps.

As of this writing Bristol competition is a go ahead… We will give everyone updates as we get closer to training on Friday.

This coming Friday we are able to have a late training day at Bristol because they have night skiing!With this being the case- coaches will meet all athletes who want to train this Friday at 1 PM in the upstairs of the Bristol base lodge. Coaches will be on the hill until 4:00 and we will have our video review at 5:00 at the hotels coaches rooms. For team dinner info and RSVP please view our calendar event here: http://www.strattonwintersportsclub.com/freestyle-events-calendar/356

For both Saturday and Sunday competition days course inspection starts at 8:40 and training goes at 8:50. If you have B Team members attending, be sure to check the B Team Blog.

Again good work A Team for your work ethic and super training regiment this past 10 days. Be sure you are registered for Killington and upcoming Whiteface Competitions. (Killington is OPEN, Whiteface should open on Monday)

As we close out this year I wanted to reach out about two things, the athlete showcase during the Stratton NYE Fireworks that highlights our program and the Stevek Mogul Challenge.

Athlete Showcase - 21 Jump Salute

This is a tradition that started 15 years ago to honor Steven G Kenney otherwise known as "Stevek". He was a pioneer of our strong seasonal programs at Stratton and was the leader of the Allegro/Freestyle program at Stratton for over 30 years. We build a jump at the base of Suntanner and have athletes jump and showcase their talent during the torchlight and fireworks. We are asking the Freeski Comp Team, B Team & A Team to take part because it's advanced nature. Training at 7:00pm for one hour, please stage at ski school and DO NOT approach the jump without coaches supervision. The show will start at 8:30 with torchlight, jumping then fireworks.

Stevek Mogul Challenge

As a member of the B Team & Allegro program, we invite everyone to take part in the Stevek Mogul Challenge. This is an event not to miss. This is a competition and while Allegro is not a competitive program, we highly encourage all Allegro athletes to try this great event! This event is a US Ski & Snowboard sanctioned event, hosted by Stratton Winter Sports Club.

Step 2: (December 31st at 6:00pm) Register for the Stevek Mogul Challenge on Monday December 31 at 6:00pm. To register, have the USSS membership number handy and please click here: http://www.easternfreestyle.org/schedule?FILTER=EQSC&SEASON=2019 (You are looking to click on the green blinking light next to the Stevek Mogul Challenge event. You have the option of doing one or two events. Friday is both girls AND Boys, Saturday is Girls ONLY and Sunday is Boys ONLY. Be sure you understand this when registering, it will help everyone. If you are interested in only doing one day, we encourage you to sign up for Saturday (Girls) or Sunday (Boys). Cost is $65 per day.

Step 3: Attend the event Please click here for the official schedule. You must be very punctual on event mornings and encourage athletes to show up early so they feel relaxed and comfortable. This event is very big deal to the Athletes and we make every effort to make sure this event is a fun, memorable event that participants will talk about for decades.

I find myself out in Winter Park, Colorado with three of our squad who have qualified for US Ski Team Selections. We have some awesome venues out here, and Blake, Jamie & Maddy are taking full advantage. Moguls day one are complete and the results are in, Jamie finished 24th, Maddy 31st and Blake in 35th. Going in to the event the plan was to qualify for NorAms and they are doing just that, one more day of moguls today (Friday) and we will know officially. Saturday is Dual Moguls with flights home for the holidays on Sunday, to be back with family and the team.

This Weekend:

JUMPING! Our main focus for the A Team this weekend will be jumping, Detour is built and ready for the A Team to fly! There are 4 components of jumping that we will be talking about: Approach, Take Off, Maneuver, and Landing. Each of these components are an important step in having successful jumps. We will focus heavily on the approach and take off. And guess what? It all relates back to Stance and Posture. Athletes will have jumps to practice on all weekend and get the correct approach and take off squared away so that come the Holiday week, we can learn and execute some exciting new tricks.

Stance & Posture must still be clearly in focus. This is something we continue to preach, practice, and perform on a weekly basis while training on flats, moguls, jumping, during warm-up routines, etc. We will continue to take the skills we discussed (knees bent over the front of our bindings, ankles flexed, shins pressed in the front of our boots and standing tall) and relate them to Turns & Line, Absorption & Extension, and Jumping.

Bristol Registration is now open. Sign up here: http://www.easternfreestyle.org/schedule?FILTER=ECS&SEASON=2019 If you have a B Team athlete in your family, we invite them to take part in the Bristol B event that is happening at the same time as the A event. We will have a B Team coach available. B team athletes attending the Bristol B event MUST have a sibling in the A event, this is a benefit for A/SMS team families. Friday January 4th, A Team training will be at Bristol, let us know your coming here: https://goo.gl/forms/GqQDgfjyXhohixy33

Please be sure you are looking at the calendar on the website, there is a ton of info on there, including preferred lodging - some with discounted rates, dinner reservation sign ups for team dinners, etc. Thank you to Rami L. & Brian C. for organizing!